


When You Need Me Most

by Shinyunderwater



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Domestic Violence, Gaslighting, Gen, Hospitalization, It's cannon they break up so I couldn't exactly make their relationship sunshine and rainbows, Narcotics, Tom Bashing, Torchwood References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-24 18:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17709620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinyunderwater/pseuds/Shinyunderwater
Summary: Twelfth Doctor and Martha Jones friendship fic meant to fit into established cannon. The Doctor was teaching at St. Luke's for decades, and a few times during his tenure his phone rang. It's not every day you get the chance to reconnect with an old friend after over a thousand years of radio silence, but Twelve is grateful for the opportunity.





	1. Where Nobody Knows Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> This fic ended up a lot darker than I initially planned. I think it fits in teen and up, but I'm bad at gauging these things, so if anyone thinks it belongs in mature say so in the comments and I'll change it.

Martha stared at her drink. She picked the lime from the edge of her glass and squeezed a few more drops of citrus in, even though she already had and the lime was quite spent, just to have something to do with her hands. As she replaced the lime she looked at her hand, or rather her ring finger and the almost imperceptible tan line from where she had taken off her engagement ring before walking into this small hole in the wall on the lower east side. “What am I doing?”

 

Of course she knew what she was doing, or at least what she was planning to do. She had taken the subway all the way downtown after work just to make sure she wouldn't run into any of her UNIT co-workers, not that they would care even if they did find out what she was up to. One of the engineers on project Indago had laughed the first time he noticed her ring. “You're engaged? What's the point of that? Do you really think it will last?”

 

Martha had been offended, but each day she understood a little bit more. She winced at the memory of last night's conversation with Tom, curled up on the couch in her way too small flat (apartment, she reminded herself, they're called apartments here) with a glass of wine, clad in her plushest bathrobe and ready to have a nice romantic conversation with her long distance fiance. “I don't understand why you can't just look for a job here in London!” His frantic shouting still burned her ears. “This is the second time in a month we've had to postpone the wedding Martha! My family is half-convinced you don't want to marry me at all. My dad thinks you're having an affair. This is humiliating for me!”

 

That last part had hurt more than any of the rest of it. She was in New York City, three and a half thousand miles from home, cut off from all of her friends and family, so she could protect humanity. She spent plenty of days feeling alone and miserable, wishing she could curl up next to a warm body and talk about how stressful everything about her current situation was. She didn't have anyone though, just Tom back in London, and he thought she was having an affair. The whole thing made her so angry. That's why she was in a small dim bar that smelled like burgers and warm liquor. She knew that if she did it, if she chose to go through with her plans, then her relationship with Tom would be over. She wouldn't lie to him. She wasn't that kind of person. She considered walking outside and calling him to tell him they were done, but that would be a hell of a phone call to get at one o'clock in the morning. She didn't think she could do it anyways. Some part of her needed him to be the one to end the relationship, and this was the most certain way she could think of to ensure he would.

 

“Can I buy you a drink?” Martha's musings were interrupted by a man pulling up a barstool next to her. She examined him as he sat down. He wore a colorful t-shirt over a pair of ratty jeans and had dreadlocks despite being very white. Martha had worn dreads in secondary school for a few years, but she'd cut them off before going to university and started straightening her hair so she would look more ‘professional’ and it always annoyed her to see white guys getting away with what she'd had to give up. Plus he just looked like an obnoxious person all around.

 

“No thanks,” she said with a smile meant to soften the rejection. There was a trick to smiling just enough so a guy wouldn't get angry and violent, but not so much that he thought he should keep trying. The trick was that it was impossible because guys always did what they wanted to do anyway.

 

“Are you waiting for someone?”

 

“Nope, just trying to relax after a long day at work,” she told him, taking a sip from her drink as she tried to figure out the magic combination of words that would make the intruder leave her alone. She supposed she should just get up and leave. If she finished her drink in a few minutes she thought she might be able to make her exit without violating any social conventions.

 

“What do you do?”

 

Martha resisted the urge to sigh and express her irritation. “I'm a doctor,” she said.

 

“Oh yeah? That's cool. I'm an artist. I designed this shirt actually.” He pointed at the loud array of colors splashed on his chest.

 

“It's nice,” she lied.

 

“I can get you one. Give me your address and I'll send it to you,” he said like that wasn't creepy or off-putting in the slightest.

 

“No thanks,” she said. “Not really my style.”

 

“I like your accent,” he tried again.

 

Martha took another sip of her drink, willing it to disappear so she could leave this awkward encounter far behind her, go back to her home that wasn't her home, and curl up in bed to cry. “I'm engaged,” she blurted out.

 

He looked at her bare hand. “You're not wearing a ring,” he protested.

 

“I took it off for a procedure at work,” she fabricated. It was an easy lie. She'd had to take the ring off plenty of times when wearing gloves that the sharp stone could puncture.

 

“Well I wasn't hitting on you anyway. It's a little arrogant to assume I was, don't you think so? I just thought you looked like you might be an interesting person to talk to.”

 

“You offered to buy me a drink,” Martha replied, at a complete loss as to why she was arguing with this annoying jerk.

 

“Because I'm friendly. It's not easy to make friends in this city, but hey, I'm the bad guy for trying I guess.” He put his hands in the air to mimic surrender. “Women these days are all so defensive. Not everyone in the universe wants to get into your pants lady,” he said.

 

Martha rubbed her brow in an attempt to dispel a rising headache. “Could you just leave me alone please? I'm really not in the mood for…” She made a vague gesture with her still ringless hand. “Whatever this is.”

 

The guy snorted with derision, but he left at last, so Martha counted it a win. She pushed her glass around on the counter. She wanted to leave the gloomy bar and its unappealing clientele far behind her, but now that the opportunity presented itself she was loathe to return to her ~~flat~~ apartment. She had no idea what she was going to tell Tom. She knew things couldn't carry on as they were, but she couldn't go through with her plan. She pulled her ring out of her purse and slipped it back onto her finger. She derived no satisfaction from the act. The metal felt cold and uncomfortable against her skin. She heard the obnoxious jerk shout an order for his 'usual’ to the bartender. At least he had found another way to occupy his time. Martha took out her phone and considered calling one of her co-workers to ask if they wanted to meet up somewhere. She knew it would be past nine before any rendezvous could take place however, and she would just look strange for calling at such a late hour. “Another one?”

 

Martha looked up at the bartender. He had a bored, almost cold manner to him that made Martha feel uneasy. All the same, she couldn't bring herself to face her lifeless empty rooms quite yet. “One more, thanks.”

 

He walked away while Martha rummaged in her bag for cash. She thought about maybe calling Tish, but to say what? Tish was still traumatized by her experiences in the year that never was. Martha couldn't bring herself to complain to her about an unsatisfactory relationship and general homesickness while her sister was still waking up screaming from another dream about the Master making her watch Jack be eviscerated. Martha shuddered. She'd suffered that year too, and every night she'd trembled in fear that she wasn't doing enough, that it wouldn't work, that she would fail, the Master would win, the world would burn and it would all be her fault because she just wasn't- “Here ya go.”

 

Martha jumped. “Thank you.”

 

“Eight dollars.”

 

Martha handed over a ten and instructed him to keep the change. She wrinkled her nose at the first sip. The drink was a bit too salty, but she wasn't going to ask him to make her another one. Thinking about the year that never was made her recall Jack. She could call him. He had suffered as much, perhaps in some ways more, than any of them the year he spent being mutilated and killed over and over again by the Master. Yet he never showed any sign of trauma. He was always glad to hear from her whenever she called for any reason. He would flirt, try to convince her to come work for Torchwood and ask about her family. The one time he seemed to have been suffering was right after Tosh and Owen had died (again in Owen's case) and she had called to give him condolences. She had offered to drive down and help him take care of some things. He'd hesitated in his answer.

 

“For how long?”

 

Martha, still in London at that point, pursuing Tom, proving herself with UNIT and spending every spare moment she could find checking on her parents or sister, had answered without hesitation. “As long as you need.”

 

“So forever then,” he joked with sincerity.

 

Then she did hesitate. “Not forever,” she said after a few moments of contemplation.

 

“What do those UNIT stuffed shirts have that I don't? Remember our pet dinosaur?”

 

“It's just…” She'd wanted to say yes, not just because he needed her, although of course for that reason as well. She wanted to go to Cardiff and work with her friend that understood her better than anybody ever had before, perhaps a little too well. “I’m not ready,” she said, aware of how ridiculous that sounded in light of everything. “There's still not enough distance. It's different at UNIT.”

 

Jack had paused, and for a moment Martha had thought the connection failed. “He used to work there you know,” Jack told her.

 

“I know, but that was decades ago, and no one I work with knew him then. He's just a story here, some mythic figure, a fairy tale.”

 

“Pretty sure I'm the one the UNIT boys call a fairy, especially after they've tied a few on.”

 

“Give me names, I'll tie something off,” she'd said with an agitated grumble.

 

“Oh Nightingale, I do love you,” he'd replied.

 

“I love you too Jack. I'll be in Cardiff tomorrow morning. I'll help you through this.”

 

“You help me just by being you. Stay in London, we're fine here for now. I'll call you if anything changes. It'll be okay, I promise.”

 

Martha hadn't believed him, and she still felt guilty for not getting in her car at the break of dawn and driving over there anyway. The fact of it was that there hadn't been anything she could have done. She couldn't bring Tosh or Owen back to life. She couldn't rewind time and undo the tragedy like the Doctor had after the year of hell. She had considered calling the Doctor, but what for? She didn't think he would fly to Cardiff with a sympathy bouquet and let an old friend cry on his shoulder. That wasn't his style. In the end she hadn't been able to think of anything she could do to help Jack. They still talked all the time, she and Ianto had that ongoing email where they gossiped about sex (sex with Jack for the most part these days since sex with Tom was on hold for the moment) and Gwen kept sending her articles from bridal blogs that ranged from helpful to amusing but always made her smile. All the same, she couldn't bear to call and ask him to comfort her when she'd failed to do the same.

 

At least her headache had abated while she'd been musing. She pushed her empty glass to the side and made to stand. She was startled when she stumbled and had to grab for the bartop to keep upright. Two drinks, the first of which she'd nursed over the course of an hour, didn't tend to be enough to get her drunk even on a bad day. She felt a hand settle on her arm. “You need help hottie?”

 

She looked up at her harasser from earlier and giggled. All of a sudden life didn't feel so drab and depressing. “Nope, I'm bloody brilliant,” she said with a laugh as she tried to push the man and his obnoxious appropriative hairstyle away. “I'mma go run a marathon mate.” He attempted to pull her back towards him, but she yanked her arm out of his grip and made for the door. The cold night air slammed into her, giving her a moment of brutal bitter sobriety. She'd had two drinks, not enough to get drunk, but she felt as light-headed and cheerful as she had at her best mate's twenty-first birthday, when she'd lost count of how many shots she'd done during some silly game. The cold seeped through her skin and into her bones as she remembered that salty taste to her second drink. As a doctor she should have recognized the sign of GHB. She rifled through her purse for her phone, and then almost dropped both when a rough hand took hold of her and started to drag her away.

 

“You look chilly. Come back to my place and I'll warm you up real nice.” She squinted in the direction of the voice, able to make out little more than a swirl of ugly colors.

 

“Hands off mate.” She shoved at him and missed, causing her to overbalance and fall to her knees. Her phone and bag scattered into the darkness. She blinked to try and clear her vision, but all she got were swirls of light and color. She grabbed for one of the lights and felt her fingers curl around hard plastic casing. She jabbed at buttons on her phone, unsure of who she was calling or what she would say when they answered.

 

Her phone was grabbed from her hands. She heard it skitter away against the rough and dirty cement. She felt herself be hauled up and dragged away. “Let me help you babe.”

 

Martha knew that under normal circumstances she could take this guy in a fight without issue. However, she couldn't get a clear view of where he was, and her muscles seemed to have decided to ignore all her commands. She felt loose and limp as he slammed her into a brick wall. She knew somewhere in her muddled mind that the loud thunk of her skull hitting brick was a bad sign, and she should be in pain. She didn't feel the pain though. She felt like she was separate from her body. She knew what was happening to her, and she knew what was about to happen to her, yet she couldn't bring herself to care. It all seemed so academic, as though someone else was on this street with a violent rapist. She wondered, but in a most disinterested way, if he would kill her after he was done with her. She wondered if that would be the end of Martha Jones, the Woman Who Walked the Earth. Once the entire world had known her name. Now she couldn't be sure if her death would even make the papers. Women were raped and murdered every day after all. This was New York City. There were plenty of more interesting things to report on.

 

She felt a hand leave her arm and then another arm, not hers, so it must have belonged to her attacker, was pressed against her throat. She knew that should have hurt. She was quite certain in- “Excuse me-” said a thick Glaswegian accent.

 

“Get lost,” said the obnoxious colors.

 

The sound of flesh impacting flesh was almost as loud as the colors. Martha felt the hand and arm holding her up against the wall drop away. She began to fall, but a pair of new arms, gentler arms, was there to catch her before she could impact the disgusting New York City street. She looked up to try and catch a glimpse of the face that went with the kind strong arms. All she could see were swirls of light, bright lights that were devoid of any color and strong enough to burn out retinas if looked upon too long. She thought they were beautiful. “Suns must hate you.”

 

“Well one did try to kill me once, remember?”

 

“The lights are going out.” They grew dimmer and smaller as she watched them. The world was shrinking, and her body was getting heavier and heavier. She collapsed into the Scottish voice. “The lights are going away.”

 

“Yes,” the voice whispered. She felt her feet leave the ground. “But you, Dr. Martha Jones are going to help fix them. So we had best not let anything happen to you before then.”

 

She realized halfway through the last sentence that she was being carried. She felt like she should be afraid, but she couldn't bring herself to be. She heard the creaking of an opening door, and it sounded like safety, like home and like every good thing. “I think I'm going to throw up,” she mumbled.

 

“Well I'm opposed to vomit in the TARDIS as a general rule, but if you can't stop yourself I'll just make Nardole clean it up.” The words slipped through her ears without touching her mind as she watched the last of the lights shimmer away and she fell into a deep sleep.


	2. Breakfast in Bristol

Martha Jones woke up. At least she assumed she had, but as she began to take in her surroundings she became less sure. She was in her room, but she wasn't in her inadequate American apartment, her comfortable London flat, Tom's messy place or even her seldom used room in her mother's house. She was in her room on the TARDIS, a place she had never expected to see again. Nothing in it had changed. The same red silk sheets covered the mattress. The same mahogany furniture filled the space. The shelf across from the bed still held the lotions and oils she'd left behind. There was one addition however, in the form of a man sitting in a chair at her bedside, reading a thin and worn chemistry text. There was also a silver tray on her nightstand holding a teapot, two teacups with steam wafting off of them and a plate of biscuits. Martha started to sit up and then flinched as a wave of nausea washed over her. “I don't feel so good,” she croaked.

 

“That's the gamma-hydroxybutyric acid,” the man said in his thick Scottish accent as he set his book down. “You should drink some tea, help rehydrate you. This is good stuff too, got it from a lovely woman on this tiny little moon orbiting one of my favorite-”

 

“Who are you?” Martha felt queasy and confused, but all the same she was determined to find out who this stranger was and how he'd gotten on the TARDIS. If the Doctor was in trouble she would do whatever it took to help him, but first she needed facts.

 

“It hasn't been that long Martha, at least not for you anyway. You just saw me a few months ago. We took care of that ATMOS problem and you met my daughter,” he said.

 

Martha stared at him, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. Her head was swimming in a sea of uncertainty, but the bed beneath her was warm and the TARDIS was humming with contentment. That more than anything lent credence to the claims of this man. “Doctor,” she asked. “You're…”

 

“Drink your tea,” he said in a kind soft voice as he picked up a cup to hand her. “It will help clear your head,” he promised.

 

Martha took the cup and them sipped the bitter tea. Despite the unpleasant taste she did feel her rolling stomach begin to settle after a few seconds, and the fog in her brain started to dissipate. “What happened?”

 

“I think you were drugged,” he said.

 

“No, I meant…” She stopped as the events of the night started to return to her. She recalled her morose musings at the bar and being served a drink that didn't taste right. “I'm such an idiot,” she whispered. “How could I be so stupid?” She looked away, towards the bone white walls, in an attempt to hide her face.

 

“You're not stupid Martha. We would all like to live in a world where everyone can exist in public spaces without fear of being targeted for unprompted violence. Behaving as though you live in such a world is a symptom of an optimistic spirit, not a deficient mind.”

 

Martha sipped more tea. She couldn't think of a good response to that. She'd almost been raped, and the idea of it made her feel sick, cold and vulnerable. The warm tea helped with the first two, but it did nothing for that last part. She tried to find something else to think about, anything else. “Did you die?”

 

“What? Oh right, the face.” Martha returned her gaze to it. The Doctor's face was old, but she had seen it old before, when the Master had forced years upon him during his captivity on the Valiant. This face wasn't just an older version of the face she knew; it was an altogether different face. “Yes, I did.”

 

“And where's Donna? Is she…” Martha couldn't bear to think of Donna, bright beautiful Donna, larger than life and as passionate as the sun, as dead. She and Donna hadn't known each other long, but it had been long enough to come to appreciate and admire her. Martha considered Donna a good friend and knew she felt the same way.

 

“Our timelines are a bit out of sync. The next time you see me I'll be the version you're more familiar with, and Donna will be there.”

 

Martha didn't fail to notice that the Doctor hadn't answered her question. He also wore a look of sadness and regret. She wanted to know more, but she knew the Doctor wouldn't answer any questions about events that took place in her personal future. So she asked about something else instead. “How did you know I was in trouble?” She tightened her grip on her teacup, willing the warmth to flow into her. She took another bitter sip.

 

The Doctor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cracked phone. “You called me.”

 

“I did?” She didn't remember calling him, but everything that happened after she got her second drink was hazy in her mind.

 

“Short call, lasted for about a second before the connection dropped. I set the TARDIS to follow the signal,” he explained.

 

“But if I didn't get a chance to say anything how did you know I needed your help?”

 

“I didn't know, but I wasn't willing to take the chance of anything happening to you.”

 

Martha finished her tea. She had no idea how to respond to that. The Doctor held out his hand for the cup, which she then relinquished to him. She watched him pour a second cup of tea for her. “Thank you, for saving me.”

 

The Doctor handed her the cup. “You're still ahead on the saving each other count.”

 

“Are we keeping score?”

 

He chuckled. “No, but if we were you would be winning.” He took a biscuit off of the plate and bit into it. He leaned back in his chair and put on an amused grin. “I've always been good at getting myself into difficult situations, but I was at the top of my game while we were traveling together. I've been somewhat slacking off of late I think.” He smiled at her.

 

“Oh for shame,” she teased. “You must have already gone to every quarrelsome planet in the universe. Now you've just got the peaceful planets with good tea and half-price matinees left.” She tried to imagine the Doctor going on a trip where he didn't run into or create some sort of urgent calamity.

 

The Doctor chuckled again. “Well it's just been this planet for a while now. You might even say that I'm sort of retired,” he told her.

 

“I can't believe that,” she said as she snagged her own biscuit. “I mean I literally can't believe it. You haven't been traveling?”

 

The Doctor shook his head. “Well alright, I cheated a few times, but don't tell Nardole, he gets insufferable. But it's true. I've… put down roots as you might say. I even have a job now! It's a real proper job,” he said.

 

Martha gaped at him. “Well first of all that's the opposite of retirement, but we'll put a pin in that for now. You have a job? YOU?”

 

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I'm good at it.”

 

“So you have a boss and get a paycheck?”

 

“Well I'm not certain about the boss. I just sort of do what I want. As for the paycheck, I'm not sure how that works. Is there somewhere you're supposed to go to pick it up?”

 

Martha laughed. “So you have a job with no boss where you don't get paid. How is this different from what you did before exactly?”

 

“Well because now I have an office.”

 

Martha chuckled some more as she relaxed further into her pillow. “So what do you do at this job? Don't tell me you're in sales.”

 

His smile lit up her room. “No, I lecture at St. Luke's University. I stand in front of a room full of people who all have to listen to every word I say without interrupting. I love it.”

 

“Oh I bet you do. What do you teach?”

 

“Everything. You know, whatever it is that strikes my fancy. Maths, literature, engineering, sculpture, biology, anthropology, woodworking, cartography, cool stuff.”

 

“That sounds… perfect for you.” She finished her second cup of tea and yawned.

 

“You should get some rest.” He was still smiling, but now some of his exuberance had given way to concern. “Don't worry about being up in time for work or anything. I can get you there early even if you take a week long vacation, which maybe you should do.”

 

“Do I look that worn out?” She felt exhausted so often of late, but all the same she didn't like the idea of people being able to see it.

 

“You don't have to carry the weight of the entire world on your shoulders Dr. Jones.”

 

“Because that's your job?”

 

“No, because it's everybody's job. You do more than your fair share, a lot more.”

 

She smiled at him. “Thank you. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't-”

 

The Doctor interrupted her. “I will always be there for you Martha Jones, whenever you need me most.” He took her phone back out of his pocket. “I'm going to fix this for you while you catch up on your sleep. Just call me, and I'll come, alright,” he asked her.

 

Martha nodded. “Alright,” she whispered.

 

“Sleep, I mean it. The TARDIS will tell me if you don't.” He collected the dirty dishes and left the room. Martha yawned again. She was tired, but she also felt grimy and tense. She eyed the door to the ensuite. She went over to her dresser and opened a drawer to find all the clothes she'd left behind and the ones the TARDIS had always been happy to supply for her when she needed extras. She pulled out a pair of warm wool pajama and headed for the shower. She let the warm water rush over her and wash away the stresses and pains of her awful day. She scrubbed every inch of skin, paying particular attention to where that creep had touched her. When she stepped up to the sink to brush her teeth she wiped the condensation from the mirror. She looked at her face, forcing herself to meet her own eyes and not look away. By the time she was curled up under her blankets she felt leagues better than she had before. She closed her eyes and let the TARDIS hum her to sleep.

 

Her dreams began grim and ugly. Tom was there shouting about wedding plans and how they couldn't get married until she got rid of all the toclafane. The metal monstrosities swarmed around them, cutting down anyone and everyone in their path. She begged Tom to help her, but he just kept shouting. One of the toclafane swerved to attack Martha's mother and Martha screamed for her to get out of the way, but- Then the orbs of death all fell out of the sky. The sun came out from behind clouds to illuminate the Earth.

 

William Shakespeare stepped out and began applauding her. “Excellent my Lady!”

 

Her sister ran forward, grabbed her hand and began pulling her along. “Come on Martha!”

 

Martha followed her to an open air theatre packed with people, but their seats were in the front row. Jack sat down next to them and began talking about all the times he'd seen this show in the past. “There was this one time in the late nineteenth century-”

 

“Yeah, yeah Harkness, you're old. Shove over will you?” Donna deposited herself right between the two of them. “Don't worry about a thing Martha. Just enjoy the show.”

 

Martha rested her head on Donna's shoulder, pillowed by voluminous red hair. As was the nature of dreams there was no rhyme or reason to anything happening, but it all felt good, and it all felt right. When she woke up she felt refreshed, lighter and full of energy and joy. She stared up at the ceiling. “Thank you,” she told the TARDIS. “That helped.”

 

Martha got dressed and walked out into the hallway, which smelled like bacon and sausages for some odd reason. She jumped when a short bald man rounded the corner and stepped in front of her. His surprise seemed to be equal to hers by his shout of indignation and alarm. “Agch! Human!”

 

“Nardole, don't be rude,” the Doctor said as he appeared behind the man. “This is Dr. Martha Jones.” He gave her a warm smile as he gestured to her. “Now where's breakfast?”

 

Nardole's eyes widened. “Not the Dr. Jones?”

 

“Well I only know the one. Although it is actually a very common name. I've run into several Joneses over the years, almost like the universe is trying to tell me something.”

 

“What would the universe be trying to tell you with the name Jones,” Martha asked.

 

“That it's used too often. Last names are supposed to help you tell people apart, what good are they if you all has the same one?”

 

“So this is Dr. Jones,” Nardole marveled as he looked her up and down. “Blimey, it's an honor to meet you doctor, a real honor.”

 

Martha was flustered by the attention. “Have you been making up stories about me?”

 

“Why would I make up stories when the real ones are so good,” the Doctor asked.

 

“You're the one who bested Missy,” Nardole said in a tone of awe. “You're a legend.”

 

“Who's Missy?”

 

“Never mind that,” the Doctor said. “You need to eat. Your body requires calories to fuel its natural healing process, and Nardole made breakfast.” The Doctor held out his hand for her to take, which she accepted with grace.

 

Martha did a double take when she saw the state of the control room. “What happened in here,” she asked. “It's…” She was at a loss for words. She pondered if maybe it wasn't the control room at all, but a different part of the TARDIS she'd never seen before.

 

“Oh yes! I redecorated. Do it like it?”

 

“It's…” She turned in a circle to take in the full view of all the changes. “It’s lovely.”

 

“I bet you like it better than the old one.”

 

Martha ran her hand along the wall as she walked the circumference of the room. “It's tough to say. They're both wonderful.”

 

“But mine is a touch more wonderful?”

 

Martha snickered. “I think I'll always be a little bit in love with the first version, but this is gorgeous too.” She grinned at him.

 

He returned her smile. “Right then, food.”

 

The Doctor led her into his office, which was a real normal-looking office. Martha couldn't help but be surprised. She'd expected for there to at least be scattered bits of machinery lying about, but she supposed he kept such things confined to the infinite storage space of the TARDIS. Nardole had three plates set out for them. Martha looked at the golden runny egg yolks, the warm brown toast, the swimming beans, the dark pink ham, the rich seasoned sausages, and her stomach growled. “That looks amazing.”

 

“I try my best,” Nardole said.

 

“So you're the Doctor's latest companion?”

 

“Companion,” the Doctor said in an aghast tone of voice. “No, no, no. No, Nardole is more like that fungus that sort of grows up between the tiles in your bathroom,” he said.

 

“I can hear you sir.”

 

“You were meant to.”

 

Martha flinched at the memory of all the times she worked so hard to help the Doctor just to be dismissed or harangued. She sent Nardole a sympathetic glance, but he didn't seem to notice her condolences or to be bothered by the Doctor's scolding. “Well you might think you can distract me sir, but I know what you did last night. Oh yes, you took the TARDIS out, a severe violation of your oath.”

 

“No, I took the TARDIS out, but I didn't go anywhere off-world. I just took a quick hop across the Atlantic, punched somebody and then hopped right back. Took seconds.”

 

Martha dipped a piece of her sausage in one of her yolks. “What oath,” she asked before she bit down on the warm filling food.

 

“Don't worry about it,” the Doctor said in the same tone one used to discuss weather and chore rotas. “It's just some silly little thing.”

 

“Some silly little thing?!” Martha raised a brow in admiration for the high note Nardole managed to hit as his voice raised in pitch.

 

“Nardole, it's fine. I'm here now, yes? And I'm trying to entertain a guest, so if you're going to be an irritation you can leave, go… check on things,” the Doctor said while making a shooting motion with his hands. “Also, the universe didn't implode, so I say that's a win for me, don't you think so,” he asked.

 

“Was the universe imploding something that was likely to happen,” Martha asked.

 

“Not likely. There was a slight probability that me going to New York could have made the entire space time continuum unravel, but that didn't happen, which is quite a relief.”

 

Martha put her fork down. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “You risked blowing up the universe because you thought I MIGHT be in trouble,” she asked.

 

“I suppose I did.” The Doctor slathered his toast with butter and then plopped some ham on top of it before taking a large bite.

 

“I don't understand.”

 

“What's to understand,” the Doctor asked around a mouthful of crumbs. “You're my friend and you needed me, so I came.”

 

Martha stared at her plate. “Oh.”

 

“Martha.” The Doctor must have swallowed his food, because his voice sounded normal again. “I know I wasn't always the greatest friend to you. I took you for granted, and I said things, hurtful things, without ever considering how it might make you feel to hear them, and I'm sorry for that. I-”

 

“It's fine,” she protested.

 

“No,” he said. “It isn't.” She looked up and saw that his expression was serious. “You are my friend, and I do care for you. I meant what I said earlier.”

 

“What did you say earlier,” Nardole asked.

 

The Doctor sighed in irritation. “Go check on the vault Nardole,” he dismissed him.

 

“Yes sir,” Nardole grumbled.

 

Martha looked into the Doctor's eyes and forced herself not to look away. “I knew that whatever danger you were in couldn't be lethal, because your future self and my past self interact. But I also knew that if you were calling me the matter must be urgent, and that whatever the urgency was it didn't involve aliens or the potential destruction of the Earth. I would remember if there was another invasion this year. You were in personal trouble, and for whatever reason I was the only one who could help. So I went.”

 

Martha's jaw dropped. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had never known how much she meant to the Doctor. He had never told her. He'd hugged her and thanked her for looking after him and then turned around and snapped at her for asking a question or not knowing what he wanted her to do without being told. Yet here he was telling her that she was important to him, not just in the sense that all human life was valuable, but that she in particular meant so much to him. She didn't realize that a tear had escaped her eye until he pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to her. “Oh, thank you. Sorry, it's just been an emotional day… week, month, you get it.” She wiped her eye.

 

“You need a vacation.”

 

“Yeah.” She thought about Tom and her family, such a short distance away. “I wish I could take a week off to work on the wedding plans and spend some time with Tish.”

 

“You can,” the Doctor said as though it were the most obvious thing. “Take all the time you want, and when you're ready to go back to work I'll pop you over to the Big Apple at ten minutes before you're supposed to arrive at work today. Just remember not to contact anyone you interact with here once you're back there until you catch up with yourself.”

 

Martha couldn't keep the ecstatic smile off of her face. “Are you serious?! That would be amazing! Thank you so much!” She got up and threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

 

He hugged her back. “Anything for you Dr. Martha Jones, whenever you need.”


	3. Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used Google translate for the Chinese phrases. Please feel free to comment on any errors.

Martha stared out the window. The battered old truck rumbled along the unpaved wilderness, on occasion sending a jolt through them when it went over a large rock, branch or uneven patch of dirt. She looked over at Mickey. “Sorry,” he said.

 

“No, not that.” Martha gave him an encouraging smile. “I was just thinking it might be time for us to take the rest of the trip on foot. If they catch sight of us coming this whole operation is blown,” she told him.

 

Mickey slowed to a stop and then cut off the engine, leaving them sitting in silence as the sun descended towards the Earth. “Do you think we should wait? By the time we get there it'll be dark, so I guess we don't need-”

 

“You don't have to come,” Martha hurried to tell him. “This isn't your responsibility Mickey.”

 

Mickey scoffed. “It's not your responsibility either, but here you are. You shouldn't have to do this on your own, or at all really.”

 

“I almost blew up the Earth,” Martha whispered. “It is my responsibility to make sure no one ever makes the same mistake I almost did.” The light was fading faster, and Martha could almost pretend she was alone in the truck, talking to herself. She wondered if this was how Catholics felt at confession.

 

“You were never going to do it. It was a bluff to keep the Daleks from blowing up reality.”

 

“Was it?” Martha grabbed her bag and opened her door. She hopped out and started walking towards her goal. She heard Mickey jogging to catch up, but she didn't slow down.

 

“You wouldn't have destroyed the Earth.”

 

“And how do you know that Mickey?”

 

“Because you're a good person.”

 

She looked over at his earnest face and raised a skeptical brow. “You've known me for what, three weeks? Now you're an expert on my character,” she asked. “I've done things.”

 

“Well so have I, but I'm still a good person.”

 

“I'm not you Mickey.”

 

“I'm not you either, and yeah, I'm not an expert on you or anything like that. I haven't known you for that long. I don't know your favorite color or favorite ice cream flavor-”

 

She stopped and gave him a look of utter bewilderment. “What on Earth do either of those things have to do with anything?”

 

“Nothing, that's my point. I'm not an expert on you Martha Jones, but I do know you. I know what it's like to make a decision like you did.”

 

She frowned. “When was this?”

 

“It's not important.”

 

“I think it is,” she insisted. “I think you should tell me before we get to the big nuclear warhead about the time you almost destroyed the Earth.” She crossed her arms and waited.

 

He looked down and sighed. Martha watched Mickey kick a pebble into the gloomy distance before looking up and meeting her stern gaze. “It wasn't the whole world.”

 

“Still need more information.”

 

“Back when I… When I met the Doctor for the first- well second, but first proper time, he asked me to do something for him.”

 

“Which was?”

 

“He asked me to blow up Downing Street and kill the Slitheen inside. They were going to destroy the planet otherwise. But the thing is they weren't the only ones inside. The Doctor was in there, Harriet Jones before she became Prime Minister and my girlfriend Rose were all inside. I thought that if I launched those missiles I'd be killing all three of them, but I did it anyway. It's only dumb luck that they survived. Doing that, making that decision, it changed me as a person.”

 

“I'm so sorry Mickey.” She reached out and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

 

“I'm not telling you this because I want you to pity me. I just need you to know that you're not alone. The Doctor, yeah he's great, but he gets inside your head and he changes you as a person. He can make you better, but he can also make you… harder. Because when you're with him everything is. Every decision you make effects so many lives. I wasn't in the room with you when you decided to use that key, but I get it. I understand. You're not a bad person, and this,” he gestured to the wilderness around them. “Shouldn't be your penance. You don't need to do penance.”

 

“I do have to do this. The Doctor said-”

 

“But it's not a punishment! I get that this is important, otherwise I never would have volunteered to come along, but this shouldn't be a way for you to punish yourself Martha.”

 

“I'm not-”

 

“Yes, you are.” Mickey looked at her, and for the first time in a long time she felt seen.

 

“Mickey…” She didn't know what she could say to him. He was looking at her with such open understanding and acceptance that it almost broke her heart. The Doctor had never looked at her like that, and neither had Tom for that matter. This man though, this almost stranger, he looked into her eyes and saw her for what she was. He acknowledged and accepted it. She felt like a gigantic weight was slipping off her shoulders. “Thank you.”

 

He smiled. “C'mon. Let's go dismantle a nuclear bomb.” He started walking again.

 

She chuckled as she followed him. “Is this what you had in mind when you decided to come back to our universe,” she asked.

 

“More or less,” he said. “I'll probably take Jack up on that Torchwood offer once we're done with this. But if he thinks I'm gonna to call him sir he's got another thing coming.”

 

Martha snorted laughter. “I'm pretty sure Ianto is the only one who calls him that.”

 

“Is he just really old-fashioned or something?”

 

“Who, Ianto?” Martha recalled the filthy contents of her last email from him. “I don't think that's the right term for him, no.”

 

“So what about you,” Mickey asked. “Are you going to take the Torchwood job? Think you can deal with living in South Wales?”

 

Martha snickered. “What have you got against the Welsh,” she demanded in a playful tone. “I thought Cardiff was lovely.”

 

“Why would I have anything against the Welsh? I'm not a sheep,” Mickey replied.

 

Martha put her hand over her mouth to hold in a guffaw of laughter. “Oh my God Mickey!”

 

“What,” he asked, all faux innocence.

 

“You're terrible,” she teased.

 

He grinned at her and she shook her head as they kept walking. The closer they got to their target the quieter they became, until they restricted themselves to relaying essential information and were communicating with hand signals. As they approached Osterhagen station five Martha thought of Anna Zhou, the young woman who had been prepared to do whatever was required of her without even knowing why. Martha couldn't decide whether that was bravery or cowardice, but all the same she wished she knew what had happened to Anna. She had been scared, but resolute. Martha felt the same way at the moment. She knew it wouldn't be easy to break through the perimeter, but she had to do it. The Doctor had given her a task. He had instructed her to destroy the Osterhagen Key for good. So she would do whatever it took to complete that errand for him even if it cost her life.

 

Martha pulled out the schematics and gestured for Mickey to begin the first part of their plan. He nodded and then headed towards a nondescript metal box, half-buried in the ground and easy to miss. Martha went in the opposite direction. A few minutes later the lights along one section of the fence surrounding the base went out. What had been an indistinct outline in the distance become a splotch of inky blackness on a backdrop of a black that was a few shades lighter. She had nothing to guide her as she made her way to the fence. She was quick to cut the wires and get through, all the while knowing there was a possibility that a backup generator could kick on and power the electric fence back up, roasting her. It did no good to dwell on such things. She took the exact number of steps her prior careful calculations told her she should and then found herself in front of a ventilation shaft blowing hot air into the already warm Chinese summer evening. She took out her tools and got to work prying off the cover. In the distance she heard people shouting in Mandarin, but she elected to ignore what she couldn't control. She had to trust Mickey to look after himself. She crawled down the shaft, feeling the hot metal even through her clothes and gloves. She felt like she was being cooked alive. Sweat poured into her eyes, and she found herself recalling her brief time aboard the SS Pentallian. She couldn't decide which environment was hotter, but the ventilation shaft was more miserable by far regardless, since she had to endure it alone.

 

When Martha at last made it to the end of the tunnel and into the base proper she wanted nothing more than to stop and savor the tolerable temperatures, but she refused to allow herself. She had a job to do, and she wouldn't rest until it was completed. She ran down the hall, eyes peeled for the door she needed to find. A shout from the other end of the hall forced her to duck into the nearest room for cover. Inside the room was a collection of tools and spare parts, which she began to rifle through for anything that might be of use. She pulled out a small screwdriver and smiled. Once the voices from outside had died down she resumed her search for the control room. A few minutes later she was prying a protective casing apart and pouring acid into the delicate circuitry of the state of the art computers. This base's access to the warheads was cut off, and for safety reasons there were no backups. With all five bases destroyed there was no way to activate the Osterhagen Key and set off the warheads.

 

Martha knew she had seconds to make her escape, but after she stood up she surveyed her handiwork. The Earth was safe from this one threat at least. There were plenty more out there. Martha couldn't get rid of every single danger. Nonetheless she had done good work, and she allowed herself to feel a moment of pride in her actions. She heard a click and whirled around. A young Chinese man, almost a teenager, was pointing a gun at her forehead. With agonizing slowness she raised her hands into the air. “Wǒ tóuxiáng.”

 

He shouted at her with words that exceeded her Mandarin vocabulary and were far too fast for her to track regardless, but the anger came through loud and clear. He took a step forward so that the muzzle of the gun was pressed against her skin, above and right between her eyes. She flinched and then closed her eyes while forcing herself to take a deep breath. “Huízhuǎn!” At least she understood that much. She turned around.

 

The soldier grabbed her hands and forced them down before cuffing her. He took hold of her forearm in a tight grip and spun her around to face the door. He marched her into the hall and then made her wait while he spoke into a walkie talkie. She made out maybe three words, and none of them were illuminating without context. A few minutes later several soldiers ran into the hall, all pointing guns at her. She stared straight ahead, silent and still. The oldest of the soldiers, old enough to be her grandfather but not in possession of a grandfather-like affable manner, stepped forward. “Who are you?”

 

“Dr. Martha Jones,” she answered. She was proud that her voice didn't tremble.

 

He looked confused. “I know of you. You are a UNIT soldier. Why have you done this?”

 

“I'm not a soldier.” If she was going to die she could accept that, but she didn't want to die a soldier. That wasn't who she was. She was a doctor. “Ask the private. I wasn't armed.”

 

The older man spat an inquiry at the young soldier, who she assumed confirmed her statement. The old soldier returned his attention to Martha. “You have not come on behalf of UNIT.” It was a statement, not a question, so she didn't answer. “Who do you work for? Did the Russians bribe you?”

 

“No. I didn't come on behalf of anybody else.”

 

The man snorted in disbelief. “You came of your own accord then? Do you expect me to believe that? Who is your master child?”

 

“I have none,” she insisted. “The Osterhagen Key is a threat to the entire world and it must be rendered non-functional. Seven billion lives is too high a price to pay for anything.”

 

He stared into her eyes and she met his gaze with resolute conviction. For a moment, just one, she thought he might concede to her argument and let her go. “Take her out back away from the cameras and shoot her. If an inquiry comes up we never saw the intruder.”

 

Martha felt cold even though her skin was still burning from the ventilation shaft. She was going to die. She let the soldiers push her along down the hall as she tried to think of a way out of her predicament. She was willing to die for her cause, but that didn't mean she wanted to die for it. She stuck her hand in her back pocket and gripped the small screwdriver she'd found earlier. She tried to twist her wrists to angle the head of the tool against the locking mechanism on the cuffs, but it slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground. Their procession came to a halt as her captors stopped to examine what she'd been holding. Her apprehender spun her around once more, this time to slap her in the face. She gasped in pain as the sting seeped deep into her nerves. “Bloody hell!”

 

“Oi!” Martha and the soldiers all turned towards the sound. She saw Mickey Smith standing down the hall holding a large gun.

 

“We agreed no weapons,” she cajoled.

 

“I'm not a very good listener,” Mickey said.

 

All three of the soldiers had their weapons and attention trained on Mickey. Martha dropped to one knee and used her other leg to sweep one of her captor's feet out from under him. Mickey ran the length of the few metres separating them and swung his gun into the face of one of the distracted soldiers while slamming his elbow against the skull of the other. Martha heard the sickening crunch of breaking cartilage. Martha kicked the downed soldiers’ weapons away while Mickey rifled through pockets for keys. The soldier with the broken nose grabbed the front of Mickey's shirt and tried to get him into a headlock, but Mickey broke the hold with ease and wrenched the keys away. He knelt behind Martha and unlocked her cuffs.

 

Martha rubbed her wrists where the metal had bit into her skin. “You should have left me,” she told Mickey as he cuffed the least injured soldier, who was yelling in Mandarin.

 

“Let's get one thing straight,” Mickey said as the pair took off running. “That's NEVER going to happen. So if that's what you want out of a partner you need to find somebody else to team up with. I don't leave people.”

 

They burst through a door that seemed to have been abandoned in the chaos and began sprinting towards the fence. “Well thank you Mickey, you saved my-” A loud crack split the air and Martha found herself falling, though she did not hit the ground.

 

“Martha!” Pain, such terrible pain, lodged in her chest and made itself at home. She felt herself being lowered down and realized Mickey was holding her. That was wrong, they needed to be running. She looked down at her chest and saw red leaking out of a hole in her jacket. “Shit! Damnit!” A few more curses made their way from Mickey's lips, but Martha was more concerned by the sounds of shouting soldiers drawing nearer.

 

“Run,” she forced out through a gasp of pain.

 

“We just went over this. I'm not leaving you!”

 

The pain was excruciating and all encompassing. She wanted to be focusing on coming up with solutions. She wanted to think of a way to get Mickey to safety before the soldiers arrived. Yet all she could think about was the pain burning inside her. It was too much for a mind to process. The receptors in her brain weren't done interpreting the last signal of top priority agony before a dozen more waves of suffering crashed down.

 

“Maybe if I surrender they'll get you a doctor.”

 

Martha grabbed his shoulder. “The Doctor.”

 

“Right,” he said in a resolved tone. “I'll be right back. I'm not leaving you. I'll just tell-”

 

“No! Mickey!” It was so hard to talk, and she had the strange sensation that she wasn't much longer for the world. She wanted to live, but if she was to die she wasn't taking Mickey down with her. “The Doctor's number is in my phone! Call him!” She felt her hand fall from his shoulder as her strength failed.

 

“Oh!” Mickey was talking, or at least somebody was talking. Martha couldn't hear it anymore. She thought about Tom, about who would tell him she was dead and how they would do it. She thought about her mum and dad. She wondered if the Doctor would take her body to them. She wondered if he would tell them the truth about what had happened to her. She wondered if it would be any comfort for them to know what she had died for, to know she was brave. She didn't think it would somehow. She wondered of Leo would ever marry his daughter's mother and if Tish would ever find what she was passionate about. She wondered if Mickey would feel guilty. She didn't want that.

 

Then it came. The sound she knew so well, the sound of joy, the sound of miracles, the sound of the TARDIS. “Ricky the idiot, what have you done?” Scottish again, that was interesting. She felt weightless, she felt peaceful and then she felt nothing at all.


	4. Bedside Manner

Martha woke up in a hospital bed. She felt exhausted, which was not a great way to wake up as being awake didn't tend to decrease exhaustion. She saw a tube sticking out of her chest and felt a sensation of terrible wrongness. She didn't want tubes inside of her. She averted her eyes and found herself looking at the Doctor. He was old again, like he had been when she had breakfast in his office. She hadn't told the Doctor about this later version of himself when she saw him last. She had known doing so could interfere with timelines. It occurred to her, looking at him, that the man she had enjoyed breakfast with months ago had known what the Daleks would do. He had known what she was going to do. He had known everything. “Hello Martha,” he whispered. “How are you feeling?”

 

The noise that came out of her throat didn't sound like her voice. It sounded like screaming metal. “I feel…” She couldn't say anymore after that. She ran out of breath.

 

The Doctor procured a glass of water and a bendy straw. “You need some fluids.”

 

“No tea,” she managed.

 

“Water first. You work your way up to tea.”

 

Martha let the Doctor put the straw up to her lips and she managed a few sips before even drinking became arduous. She closed her eyes as she took a moment to recover. “You came,” she said at last. “You came for me.”

 

The Doctor seemed confused by her observation. “I told you I would, didn't I?”

 

“Does this mean…” She had to pause to recover her breath, but he waited. He never would have done that before. “Is he dead?”

 

The Doctor fiddled with the glass of water, rolling it between his palms. “You'll see me as I was one more time Martha,” he explained.

 

“Just one?”

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

There was so much Martha wanted to say in response, but she didn't have the energy or the oxygen for any of it. The Doctor seemed to understand a little regardless. He took hold of her hand and let them sit in comfortable silence until the door to the hospital room opened a few minutes later. “Her mum and dad are on the way, and her sister said she's calling the brother and fiancee,” Mickey said in a rush as he entered. His eyes widened when he saw hers open. “You're awake!”

 

“Perhaps we could refrain from shouting Mickey,” the Doctor suggested in a soft tone.

 

“Sorry,” Mickey whispered. “I'm so glad you're awake Martha. I was terrified for you.”

 

“Thank you for saving me, for refusing to leave me,” she struggled to say.

 

“Thank you for holding on,” Mickey said.

 

She smiled at them. It was a weak smile, but a sincere one. It did her heart good to know she had two such amazing people who cared for her so much. “Which hospital…” she let them figure out the rest of the sentence, too tired to continue. They were smart enough to divine her meaning from context.

 

“Royal Hope Hospital. Don't worry, it's in London, not on the moon,” the Doctor said.

 

“Well as long as there's no…” Martha's train of thought slipped away from her. “Why do I feel so…” She cast about for the right word.

 

“Are you in pain,” the Doctor asked.

 

“Yes,” she admitted. “But it feels like I should be in more. I know I should be in more.”

 

“Painkillers,” the Doctor said.

 

“Oh right,” she smiled. “Those.”

 

The door to the room opened again, but it flew open with a bang that made Martha's heart rate jump. “What the bloody hell is going on,” Tom shouted as he entered.

 

“Lower your voice,” the Doctor ordered.

 

“Who are you,” Tom demand.

 

“Tom,” Martha said while she struggled to rise from the bed, letting her hand slip from the Doctor's grasp as she did so.

 

“Woah, woah, woah,” Mickey said. “Martha please relax. You were shot,” he begged.

 

“Somebody SHOT my fiance?!” Martha gave up trying to sit up. She didn't have the strength, and the effort was painful.

 

“If you don't lower your voice I'm going to have to ask you to leave,” the Doctor said with deceptive calm. “This is a hospital and there are patients convalescing.”

 

“Tom,” Martha said again. “I'm okay.”

 

“How the hell did you get shot? Who are these people?” He gestured to Mickey and the Doctor. “You said you were out of town on a work trip. Why didn't you call me when you got back to London,” he demanded.

 

Mickey spoke up. “Listen mate, Martha's just been hurt, alright. Is now really the best time to be harassing her with so many questions?”

 

“HARASSING her?! She's my fiance!”

 

“I'm Mickey. Martha and I work together and I was there during the… uh… incident. I can tell you what happened, but let's go into the hall so she can get some rest, alright?”

 

Tom looked at Martha, searching her face for something she didn't know about. Their eyes locked and Martha realized he was seeking reassurance from her. He needed permission to abandon her bedside and satisfy his curiosity instead of comforting her. She would have preferred to have him with her telling her everything would be okay and that he loved her, but Martha knew that wasn't a real option. If he stayed in the room he would just hound her for answers, and she was too tired to come up with any. “I'm fine,” she lied.

 

“I'll be right back.” Tom followed Mickey out of the room, and there was blissful silence once again. Martha closed her eyes, stunned by how much weaker and more drawn she felt after a brief encounter with her intended.

 

A hand slipped over hers again. She smiled but didn't open her eyes. She knew she didn't need to. She could just rest. “So that was Tom the pediatrician,” the Doctor said in a casual tone. Martha wasn't sure, but she thought she might have detected a note of disapproval in his voice. “Sort of short.”

 

“He's 6’3”,” Martha mumbled, her eyes still closed and her mind drifting. She felt safe with the Doctor. He squeezed her hand.

 

“Must be his posture.”

 

“You're so hard to please,” she teased.

 

“I have high standards.”

 

“I remember.” Her thoughts flowed from her mind to her mouth. She spoke without consideration and floated in the strange realm between wakefulness and sleeping.

 

“You always lived up to them, every time.”

 

She opened her eyes. “You might have said.”

 

“Should have done,” he admitted. “But I've been told that for a genius I am at times in possession of a staggering level of stupidity.”

 

She smiled. “I don't want to see you just one more time. I want you to be a part of my life.”

 

“I told you, you can always call. It doesn't even have to be an emergency. I'll always be there for you Martha. You were always there for me when I needed you,” he whispered.

 

“Sometimes…” Martha frowned as she realized how loose and open she was being.

 

“Martha? Are you in pain?”

 

“I think I might be high.”

 

The Doctor chuckled. “You just had a major invasive surgery,” he told her. “A tiny piece of metal ripped through your fragile human body and tore a hole in your lung, causing air to-”

 

“Doctor this would have been a great conversation to have back when I was studying for my exams, but right now it isn't the most cheery topic,” Martha croaked.

 

The Doctor squeezed her hand. “Sorry.”

 

“Tell me something nice.”

 

“Something nice?”

 

Martha felt her eyelids growing heavier and let them drop down. “Pretend you're giving one of your lectures. Just… talk about something nice. I like your voice,” she said.

 

“Sure thing,” he said. “Well back in 1822…”

 

Martha only caught every other word of what the Doctor said, and the words slipped from her grasp as soon as she had hold of them anyway, but that wasn't the point. His voice became a soothing melody that sang of peace and safety. She liked knowing that he was there. She liked having a hand to hold and a voice to drown out the beeps and whines of the medical equipment. When the door opened again she felt a flash of irritation and then shame. She just wanted a little bit of peace; she couldn't deal with Tom's interrogation at the moment. Then she reminded herself that Tom loved her and she shouldn't think such uncharitable thoughts concerning him. It wasn't his fault; the situation was terrible for both of them.

 

“Martha.” That wasn't Tom's voice, and despite how she had just admonished herself she couldn't help her relief. She opened her eyes and was ecstatic to see her mother making a beeline for the empty bedside.

 

“Mum.” Martha saw tears welling in her mother's eyes. “Please don't cry.”

 

“I'm sorry. I was just so scared. This stranger called us. He said you'd been shot and I…”

 

“I'm sorry mum.”

 

“Shhhh,” Her mother leaned forward and kissed Martha's brow. “Just rest.” A tear fell from her eyes onto the bed. The Doctor pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to Francine. “Thank you. Who are you?”

 

“Come now Francine,” the Doctor said in a light-hearted tone. “It hasn't been that long, well not for you anyway. I do ask that you refrain from slapping the new face though.”

 

Martha couldn't help but smile when her mother turned to her with a look of utter befuddlement. “He's the Doctor mum.”

 

Francine examined the Doctor's face, looking just as, if not more, confused. “You don't look like the Doctor, or sound like him,” she said.

 

“I regenerated,” the Doctor explained.

 

Francine looked at her daughter. Martha felt her mother's eyes rove over her, taking in the injuries and her weakened state. “Did you have anything to do with what happened to my daughter,” Francine asked in a low voice.

 

“No,” Martha whispered.

 

“Yes,” the Doctor said at the same time. “It was my fault entirely. I asked Martha to do something for me, a long time ago, well a few weeks ago for you lot, without ever considering the risks or consequences she would be undertaking. I'm sorry.”

 

“Doctor-” Martha began to protest.

 

“Maybe I should slap you again,” Francine told the Doctor. “Are you ever going to let her have peace? My daughter's happy now, she doesn't need you. Just leave her alone.”

 

“Mum,” Martha pleaded. “The Doctor saved my life. And he's being a self-flagellating idiot right now. I didn't do what I did for him. I did it for you and Tish and Leo and Tom and everybody else on Earth. I did it to-” Martha had to stop to regain her breath. She was speaking in a strangled whisper, but all the same her body didn't have the oxygen to spare for more words. “To protect-” She closed her eyes and tried to breath deep.

 

“Martha it's alright,” the Doctor said.

 

“No, it's-” She felt so frustrated about not being able to express herself. She couldn't even express the frustration. She couldn't sit up in bed, much less carry an argument.

 

“I'm proud of you sweetheart,” her mother switched topics. “I don't know what you were doing, but I know whatever it was that you were protecting us from it. Thank you love.”

 

Martha blinked away tears. “The Doctor did save me, him and Mickey. I told Mickey to leave me behind. He wouldn't do it.”

 

“Leaving people behind has never been Mr. Smith's style,” the Doctor agreed. “He has this irritating propensity for loyalty.”

 

The door opened again and the man himself entered, followed by Tom. Tom walked to the foot of the bed, since both sides were occupied. Martha was starting to feel claustrophobic from all the crowding, even though a moment ago she had been grateful for the company. “I can't believe that something like this happened,” Tom said.

 

“I'll be okay,” Martha reassured him. “I'll be up and out of here in no time.”

 

“It'll take at least a week for you to get discharged Martha, you know that,” Tom corrected her. “This is a serious injury.”

 

Mickey spoke up from his position a little ways away from the bed. “I told Tom all about what happened at that medical conference, and how you were airlifted back to London.”

 

Martha was grateful to him for filling her in on the cover story she needed to maintain and for coming up with one that didn't make her look like liar. Even though she supposed she was a liar. She'd lied to Tom so much in the recent weeks. She wanted to think of a way to make it up to him, but she couldn't do much from a hospital bed. Instead she just smiled at Tom. It was the best she could do.

 

“You're going to need physical therapy,” Tom said. “This sort of injury will take weeks for a full recovery. We'll probably need to postpone the wedding again,” he said with a sigh.

 

That was the last thing in the world she wanted to talk about. She just wanted to rest and not think about what a struggle her life was going to be soon. But Tom's comment had opened the floodgates. She thought about all the consequences that could be waiting for her. There was every possibility UNIT had already been informed of her actions in China. She considered that she might be a wanted fugitive. “I need a phone.”

 

“What for,” Tom demanded.

 

She tried to sit up again. Her mother placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Martha.”

 

“I need to call my work.”

 

“That's what you're to thinking about?” Tom sounded more than a little annoyed. “Work?”

 

“I need to talk to them.”

 

“It's taken care of,” the Doctor said.

 

Martha frowned, but she let her mother ease her back down. “What do you mean?”

 

The Doctor glanced at Tom. She understood his meaning. Whatever the Doctor had done, he couldn't tell her about it until Tom was gone, not if she wanted to maintain the illusion that she was a normal woman with a normal job. Tom noticed the Doctor's glance, despite its brevity. “Who did you say you were again,” Tom asked, voice suspicious.

 

“I'm Professor Smith.” The Doctor stuck out his hand for Tom to shake. “Pleasure.”

 

Tom shook his hand and Martha noticed him flinch as the Doctor squeezed his hand more than was necessary. “How are you involved in all this,” Tom asked. “Are you a friend of Martha's, because I've never heard of you.”

 

The Doctor smiled, but like a snake or a shark or something else that would rather eat you than be your friend. “We go way back.”

 

Mickey interceded before a fight could break out, for which Martha was grateful. “The D- um, professor, used to be our boss,” he said.

 

“Really,” Tom asked, sceptical.

 

“It was more like my job was to try to fix things, and after I botched them up Martha's job was to tidy up the mess I made.”

 

Martha giggled, and then coughed. “You are so dramatic,” she complained.

 

“Martha's a doctor,” Tom said.

 

“And so am I,” the Doctor said. “We were quite a team back in the day.” The Doctor wore that fond nostalgic look of his.

 

Tom seemed to notice the Doctor's affect as well, and he didn't like it. “Well you should probably go,” Tom said. “Martha needs to heal, and she can't do that with a bunch of people crowding and exciting her.”

 

“It's fine Tom,” Martha said.

 

“Tom's right love,” Francine said. “You do need to rest.” Martha's mum loved her future son-in-law, which Martha knew she should be grateful for but never was for some reason.

 

“I like having you all here.” She liked having the Doctor, her mum and Mickey at least, but if Tom brought up the wedding again she was going to scream. Well she didn't have the lung capacity to scream, but she would give it her best effort. “I don't want to be alone.”

 

“I'll stay with you,” Tom said.

 

“No.” She flinched. That sounded bad. “I mean you don't have to. I know this is hard on you, to see me like this. Maybe just my mum might stay,” she suggested. “My dad will probably be here soon too. You could come by tomorrow when I have more energy.”

 

“Fine,” Tom said, trying and failing to conceal his agitation. “I'll come by early so we can talk for a couple of hours before I need to go into work,” he said. “We can make plans.”

 

That sounded awful to Martha, who didn't want to talk about the future or deal with Tom's morning personality while she was recovering, but she smiled anyway. “That sounds great. I love you,” she said.

 

He stepped forward, and Francine leaned back to give him access to Martha. He knelt down and kissed her on the lips. “Feel better.”

 

Martha nodded. “Thanks Tom.”

 

Tom hesitated on his way out of the room and eyed Mickey and the Doctor. “Does anybody want to split a cab?” His implication was clear; he didn't want either of them to continue lingering at his fiance's bedside.

 

“That'd be good,” said Mickey, with an expression that made it clear he in no way wanted to share a cab with Tom. He stepped up to the bed to make his farewell. “I'm so glad you're safe,” he said. “If you need anything, anything at all, call me. You've done so much for me since I got back. Thank you.”

 

“Thank you Mickey,” she whispered. “I'll talk to you soon. Oh, can you call Jack and tell him I'm okay? He might have heard through the grapevine that something happened.”

 

“No problem. See you later.” Mickey gave her an awkward little wave and then headed out the door, but Tom still lingered.

 

The Doctor paid Tom no mind. “Can I get you anything,” the Doctor asked Martha.

 

“Just…” There were so many things she wanted to say, but Tom was listening and she had a limited word capacity. Yet the Doctor seemed to understand all the same.

 

He squeezed her hand again. “I will see you soon Martha Jones,” he said, ignoring Francine's glare. “Just remember that no matter the hour or the circumstances, you can and should call. I will come, I promise.”

 

She felt some of the weight on her dissipate and managed to grin, not a weak smile, but a true grin. She squeezed his hand back. “I'll see you soon Doctor. Thanks for everything.”

 

He kissed her check, again ignoring Francine as she cleared her throat in protest. He let go of her hand and headed for the exit, with Tom's eyes boring into his back. “Who the hell was that guy,” Tom asked when he was gone. “I've never heard you mention a professor or doctor Smith before.”

 

Martha closed her eyes. She felt the room begin to fade away and heard her mother humming in the distance. In some ways her mother's song reminded her of the engines of the TARDIS. Martha smiled, and then slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far into the story please consider leaving a comment. Positive or negative, I just want to know how people feel about it.


	5. Blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just realized something. All these chapter titles except for the first one start with a B. I didn't do that on purpose, but now it feels like a theme. Not sure what it could symbolize though.

Martha sat at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a cup of frigid tea and listened to the sound of Tom's key turning in the lock. He walked into the kitchen and looked around the cold dim room. “I guess you couldn't have made dinner or anything.”

 

Martha ignored that. She wasn't going to let herself get annoyed. She wasn't going to let this become a fight. “My doctor cleared me to go back to work today,” she said instead.

 

Tom crossed his arms over his chest and remained standing. It was clear he was getting ready for a confrontation. “And you're going back to your old job,” he asked.

 

“Yep.” No one who had been stationed at Osterhagen station five had been able to remember what happened the night they'd been infiltrated. The security footage had been wiped. There was no forensic evidence to lead to the perpetrator. When Martha had heard the news through a colleague she had been grateful to the Doctor, but she had also been unnerved. She thought about Donna and her missing memories. She wondered if the Doctor would ever do something like that to her. All the same she told her supervisor she had been injured in a traffic accident and Jack used one of Tosh's old programs to change all of her medical records to support that assertion. Martha wished she could call Tosh and thank her, but of course that bright and beautiful woman was still dead. Tosh had died in the same line of work Martha was going back to. Martha wondered if maybe she was mad to be making such a decision. “I go back on Monday. I'll be working in the office for the first week, but after that I'll-”

 

“So you didn't think to even consult me,” Tom asked, voice trembling with suppressed rage.

 

“Why would I,” Martha asked, careful to keep her voice as emotionless as possible.

 

“I don't know, maybe because we're supposed to get married in two months!”

 

“Please don't yell,” Martha asked, heart sinking. “I don't want to fight anymore.”

 

“You keep saying you don't want to fight, but then you go and do all these selfish things!”

 

Martha sighed. “Tom-”

 

He went over to the table and kicked a chair away. He began pacing the kitchen like a caged tiger. “I don't understand you Martha!”

 

“Please stop yelling.”

 

“I'm only yelling because I'm angry!”

 

“Well I'm angry too,” she said in a calm deliberate tone, never altering the volume or cadence of her voice. “But I think we can talk about this without screaming. So please-”

 

“Maybe you should scream Martha! Then at least I would know you cared about me enough to express some kind of emotion!”

 

She turned to face him. “Is that what you want Tom? You want me to yell?”

 

“I think I do,” he said.

 

She shrugged. “Fine.” She got to her feet and stared at him. She started out with a normal voice, the sort used for relaying weather forecasts and food orders. “You asked me to marry you. You told me you loved me and that you wanted to spend the rest of your life making me feel loved. A couple of weeks later you told me you were going to Africa.”

 

“What does that-”

 

“No!” At last the yell came. She hated it, but at the same time it felt good. “You said you wanted me to yell! Well now I'm going to yell Tom! I supported you! I told you that your dreams were important and that you should pursue them if that's what makes you happy!”

 

“I didn't go to Africa because it made me happy! I went to save lives! You of all people should understand how important what I-”

 

“What do you mean, me of all people?!”

 

“I just meant-!” He backtracked. “You never said you had a problem with me going to Africa! You said it was a good thing!”

 

“Yes! And I meant that! But then I was offered an amazing position at New York-!”

 

“Oh right, your confidential job! 'I can't tell you what I'm doing Tom. I can't talk about anything going on in my life Tom.’ I got so bloody sick of that shit! What kind of partnership is this if you can't even be honest with me?!” He clenched his hands into fists.

 

“I tried to talk to you! I stayed up until one AM most nights so we could talk when you got up at six to get ready for your shift! I wanted to talk to you! But all you wanted to do was fight and scream and accuse! We could’ve talked about our families or movies or the funny way Americans talk or literally anything! But you just wanted to fight! It's like you enjoy it!”

 

“I don't enjoy any part of this!”

 

“Well you could have fooled me!” Martha took a deep breath and then plunged on before he could interrupt. “But you know what Tom, I think this is my fault. Because I LET you treat me this way. I practically encouraged it!”

 

“Treat you what way?! Don't act like you're some kind of abuse victim. You're not.”

 

Martha laughed. “Is that the fucking standard?! You never hit me, so we're good?”

 

Tom rolled his eyes. “I've always been good to you Martha, probably better than you deserved. Maybe if I didn't put up with so much of your bollocks you wouldn't act like such a bleeding mental health case!”

 

“You never put up with me!” The feelings came pouring out. The resentment bled from her heart. “Each time I made a mistake or did something you didn't like you made bloody well sure I knew! I always have to be perfect around you! There's no room for error with you Tom. I have to watch everything I say and micromanage my every action, because when I mess up you're always there waiting to catch we out. I get so tired when you're around Tom! You make me feel exhausted.”

 

Tom scowled. “So I should just let you do whatever you want? To hell with the rest of us, Martha Jones has some important business to attend to. I can't even schedule a dinner with my parents without checking with you because you'll probably be busy!”

 

“But that's normal Tom! I'd call you before setting up dinner with my mum or dad if I wanted you to be there! I wouldn't make a commitment for you without consulting you!”

 

“You’ve got an explanation for everything don't you,” he snapped. His face grew redder.

 

“I shouldn't have to explain myself to you though Tom! That's the point! You tell me you love me, but then you treat me like I'm not good enough for you!” She turned away to hide the burning tears threatening the edges of her vision. “I've been treated like I'm not worthy so often in my life that I guess I just got used to it. I did this. I let you torment me because I thought it was normal.”

 

“TORMENT you?! Give me a break.”

 

Martha wiped her eyes with the back off her hand. “You know, every time I thought about saying something I stopped because, and you'll get a kick out of this, because I was trying to prove something. My mum was so happy when we got together. She wanted me to move on. But I didn't move forward with you Tom! I moved backwards! So here I am again in yet another relationship where the man I'm with doesn't care about my feelings and is more than willing to use me up and cast me aside! I should have left, but I refused to do it because I was afraid of what my family would think!” Martha thought of all the times she had been tempted to try and talk to her mother about how dissatisfied she was with Tom. In each instance she had imagined she would be berated for still being hung up on the Doctor. So she had kept her silence and her peace. “But it doesn't matter what they think.” She was calm again. Yelling had been cathartic, but she wasn't angry anymore. She was just tired and ready to move on. “You don't make me happy Tom.”

 

He stared at her like he'd never seen her before. “Well you haven't made me happy in a long time either Martha. So what the hell do you want to do about it?” He gave her a smug look, as though he were sure he had the upper hand. “Do you want to pack and go?”

 

Martha looked at the ring on her finger. “Yes.”

 

The smile slipped off Tom's face. “Don't make threats Martha. If you want me to chase after you that isn't going to happen,” he snarled.

 

She twisted the ring off her finger and placed it on the table. “I'm done,” she said. “I don't want to be in a relationship where I get no support and precious little affection. We don't work Tom. I'm not blaming you, but it seems like we've been bringing out the worst in each other for a long while now.” She exhaled, and with the stale air she felt herself letting go of so much anxiety. It was over. She had ripped off the bandage and done it. “I'll get my stuff.”

 

She started to walk past him into the hall, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her back so that she was facing him. He held tight onto her forearms to hold her in place. “You are unbelievable, you know that? You lie to me, you neglect me, you act like you're superior to me-!” he began to admonish, each word louder than the last until Martha interrupted.

 

“I never-!”

 

“Shut up! I'm talking!”

 

She tried to pull away, but he dug his fingers tighter into her arm. She thrust her knee into his kidney and he gasped in pain, losing his grip on her as he doubled over. Martha ran for the bedroom and slammed the door shut, locking it and sinking to the ground to lean against it. She buried her face in her knees and began to sob. She'd thought she loved Tom, but in that moment she reached the certainty that he'd never loved her. She felt the door begin to shake as he pounded on it and shouted obscenities. All the little things she had dismissed and convinced herself were normal flooded into her mind. All the times he had insisted on having his way, all the times he got frustrated and shouted over her, all the times he disregarded her opinions or feelings because he thought he knew best.

 

“Open the door Martha!” She had always gone back to the events of the aborted timeline to convince herself that Tom was a good man and loved her. But at last she was forced to admit to herself that the Tom she had met in the year that never was wasn't the same man as the one she'd been in a relationship with for the past year that had taken place. The door continued to vibrate as Tom's pounding grew more frantic. He hated not getting his way, but Martha had never seen him quite so angry. Perhaps that was because she'd learned to soothe his temper early in their relationship. In a sense she'd been training for it her whole life. Martha the peacemaker, but there was no way to make peace now. “Open the bloody door!”

 

“Tom, you're out of control! Just take a walk and give me a few minutes to pack!”

 

“You're mental if you think I'm going to shrug off the way you just behaved! Open the door and face me right the hell now!” To punctuate the last word he slammed his fist against the door hard enough for the wood to split.

 

Martha scrambled to her feet and examined the small crack in the wood. “Tom! Stop!”

 

“Open! The! Door!” Martha grabbed her purse from the nightstand and fished out her phone.

 

“I'm calling the police!” Martha had no intention of doing any such thing, but she hoped the threat might make Tom pause long enough for her to get her bearings. She didn't want neighbors to see the police arrive and word to get back to her parents. Even worse would be if the police report ended up on her UNIT supervisor's desk. She was certain any respect her colleagues had for her would evaporate if they discovered she needed help to deal with her civilian boyfriend.

 

Tom called her bluff, and he didn't stop hitting the door. He shouted even louder. “If you don't open this door right now we're through!”

 

“We are way past that point!”

 

“This is going to be so much worse for you if you don't open the fucking door!”

 

Martha stared at her phone. She didn't want anybody to know about the situation she was in, and even if she could cope with the shame there wasn't anyone who'd be able to arrive in time to do anything if the widening crack in the door was any indication. She looked at the numbers. There was one person who could help. There was one person who could arrive at any time, and who had promised to do just that whenever she needed. Yet as Martha's thumb hovered over the button she hesitated. The Doctor's future self had said she would see him as the version she was most familiar with one last time. She couldn't bear for that occasion to be the situation she found herself in at that moment. She didn't want that to be her legacy in the Doctor's mind. With a loud crack the doorframe splintered, and Martha pressed the button.

 

Tom shoved his way into the room as a voice Martha recognized but couldn't place at first filled her ears. “Hello, who is this?”

 

“Wh- Nardole!” The name came to Martha in a flash of inspiration. Martha had liked the Doctor's strange new companion. She had felt a kinship with him. “Where's the Doctor?!”

 

“Who are you talking to,” Tom demanded in an enraged tone. “Give me that!” Tom tried to grab the phone, but Martha backed away.

 

“Dr. Jones! How are you? Lovely to hear from you again. You should stop by for tea sometime. Would put you know who in a better mood I think,” Nardole said.

 

Tom snatched the phone away before Martha could respond and threw it hard enough to leave a sizable ding in the wall where it impacted. Before Martha could get in a word of protest he punched her right where he knew her surgical scar was. Martha gasped in pain. The night she'd come home from the hospital Tom had kissed that scar. He had told her he loved her and that he was so glad she was alive. That had been just a week ago, but more than enough time for Tom to change his mind by the looks of it, if he had ever meant a word. He shoved her to the ground and her head hit the edge of the nightstand, causing her to hiss in pain.

 

“I give and I give and I give,” Tom ranted as he paced in front of her. Martha didn't pay attention to his delusional rambling, because she could hear the faint sound of the TARDIS engines beginning to materialize. “The more I do the less you respect me. It's like you WANT me to be angry. Is that it? Do you like making me feel this way?” Martha struggled to sit up as a blue box solidified in front of the closet. Tom noticed it at last and turned to stare, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

 

The doors opened and the Doctor stepped out. He seemed calm, one might even say he had an almost cheerful countenance, but the person saying so would have to be someone who didn't know the Doctor well, and they would have to refrain from looking into his tempestuous eyes. The Doctor didn't speak a word to Tom. All he did was reach out with the pointer and middle finger of his right hand and poke Tom in the forehead. Tom's eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground.

 

“Doctor,” Martha said. She tried to get to her feet, but the Doctor was in front of her a second later, extending his hand. She took it and let him pull her up. She flinched at the pain where her flesh was tender. “He'll be alright won't he? I mean I know you didn't kill him or anything like that. You wouldn't, but he's not hurt is he?” Martha felt embarrassed enquiring after the man who had threatened her and hit her, but she needed to know.

 

“He'll wake up with a nasty headache from his graceless fall and no memory of a strange blue box materializing in his bedroom, but other than that he'll be…” The Doctor appeared to be searching for the appropriate word. “Unchanged,” he went with.

 

Martha understood. Fine wasn't the right word for Tom. She nodded. “I'm sorry about this, I-” She felt a pair of arms envelop her in a strong but careful hug. “Thanks for coming.”

 

The Doctor leaned back to look into her eyes, but kept hold of her. “I didn't know that this would happen,” he swore. “I knew you didn't marry him, but I had no idea this was going to happen Martha, I promise. I would have said something at the hospital if I did.”

 

It had never occurred to Martha that the Doctor would have any foreknowledge on the outcome of her relationship, and she saw no reason to doubt him. “I'm fine,” she assured him, became she felt like she had to.

 

The Doctor shook his head. He looked like he was struggling again to come up with the proper words to say. “Tea,” he said at last.

 

“What?” Martha was thrown.

 

“Nardole is making tea. With you in attendance he might even break out the stash of good biscuits. Tea is what you need.”

 

Martha smiled. The nature of her predicament was too complex to be solved by something as simple as a warm beverage and sweet food, but all the same she was eager to rest from her ordeal. There was however work that needed to be done before she could allow herself respite. “I have to get all my things before Tom wakes up.”

 

“I'll take care of it,” the Doctor assured her as he began to guide her onto the TARDIS with gentle movements. “I'll erase any sign that you were ever in this apartment,” he said.

 

Martha frowned. There was something a bit off about that statement, but it took her a moment to realize what. She came to a sudden halt and turned to look into the Doctor's eyes. They were hard flint, and she shivered. “You erased his memories of me.”

 

It was a statement, not a question, but the Doctor answered anyway. “He won't go looking for you. He won't trouble you or your family. He won't spread the lies bitter men always do about the women who manage to break free from their abuse. He won't ever lay a finger on you or say an unkind word to you ever again,” the Doctor declared. “He doesn't deserve to remember you Martha.”

 

Martha closed her eyes. She didn't know what to say. “It wasn't just him.” She opened her eyes. “It wasn't all his fault.”

 

“No,” the Doctor agreed. She flinched at his easy acceptance of her claim. For a moment she was terrified he would erase her memories as well, that he would punish her for her weakness by wiping all the beauties of the universe from her mind. “No the fault does not all belong to him,” the Doctor continued as he tried to lead her into the TARDIS again. She followed his prompting without protest. “Some of it belongs to me.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tread Softly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048564) by [kesomon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesomon/pseuds/kesomon)




End file.
